On The Road Again
by Cruton
Summary: The duelists have left, but Akio has remained. Now, with the planetarium repaired, he seeks a way to restart the duels without the rose bride and finds a forgotten acquaintance may be the answer.


On The Road Again  
  
A Revolutionary Girl Utena fanfic  
  
By Cruton  
  
Cruton@juno.com  
  
AIM: CrutonIggy  
  
Disclaimer: Revolutionary Girl Utena was created by Chiho Saito and is property of Be-Papas. I stake no claim to these characters or any elements of the story, only the plot. Of course, I'm not to going to make the ridiculous claim that this fic is copyrighted, but trust in everyone else's artistic integrity. And inform you all that I have ways of tracking you down, ways of getting to where you live, and ways of bringing a stainless- steel baseball bat with me. -.^  
  
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Akio wafted through the planetarium. The shudders hung open like lazy eyes, letting the dying rays of the sunset dance across the room. In the center stood the grim, monolithic projector, looming over everything like some haughty god. In truth, it was a surprising metaphor of Ohtori Academy, although Akio wasn't thinking in such terms today. You could also compare it to a temple or the universe or the Apocalypse or any other dozen literary conceits. Frankly, Akio couldn't care less. He was enjoying himself.  
  
It had been a long while since he had wafted. He had tromped. He had slinked. He had stumbled. He had glided. He had slithered. He had run. He had even just walked on occasion. But wafting was not something he had the time to do lately. Of course, this was just a symptom of his happiness, not a cause, per say.  
  
The reason Akio was happy was because, after so long, he had finished it. He had finished repairing the planetarium. The damage the swords had done to it was extensive. Almost everything had been cut away to the bare bones. Windows smashed to granules, architecture shredded, the projector reduced to so much scarp metal. To a team of trained professionals, repairing it completely would be a tall order. Akio had been flying half- blind.  
  
But now it was over. After what may have been decades of work, Akio had single-handedly repaired it all. He felt…proud. He hadn't done work like that probably since his days as The Rose Prince. Not to say he hated physical work. On the contrary, he was quite the specimen. But giving someone a full demonstration on the Kama Sutra or fighting epic sword battles or convincing a bunch of sexually frustrated teenagers to kill each other was quite different from rebuilding the projector. For one thing, fixing the projector involved screwdrivers slipping off their mark a whole lot more. Maybe he could've tried outsourcing, but he only knew of one person in the world who knew the equipment and she wouldn't be willing to help him.  
  
But Akio had done it. This made him happy. Hence the wafting. Perhaps he should make the car his next project, he thought idly to himself. It was a great ride and all, but no man with his kind of style and resources should require a mechanic. It just wasn't suave enough. It could be his hobby. He probably needed a hobby, anyway. Maybe that's why his previous attempt failed; he made the mistake of mixing pleasure and work.  
  
Work. That word crushed the wafting from his gait There was much work to be done, now. He had to restart the duels. But although his attempts had remade all the paraphernalia, he still lacked the most important component of it. He didn't have the Rose Bride anymore. How does one wheedle the heroism from a person's heart without the princess to be saved?  
  
It was this train of thought that caused Akio to stand in contemplation for several hours, looking over the academy as the sun disappeared and the stars did their nightly dance. Between his ears, ideas and schemes and theories and philosophies whirled across the void of confusion. But every time, it just turned up blank. There were just too many loose factors, too many tangents for even him to keep track of. So, he just stood there, thinking and thinking, becoming deeper and deeper engrossed in his thoughts. It was like reality was falling away from.  
  
Maybe that's why he didn't notice the intruder entering. Maybe that's why it took a light, embarrassed cough at four in the morning to bring him back to Ohtori.  
  
Spinning around, Akio focused his attention on the newcomer. He or she was lurking outside slender effort of the moonbeams, shadows completely concealing them. Akio frowned at being surprised and addressed the intruder.  
  
"Can I help you? This is a rather odd time to take a caller, admittedly, but I'd hate to fail as a host."  
  
The figure gave a chuckle. A baritone voice, Akio's mind registered. So it was probably a man. That theoretically narrowed it down. Slowly, the figure stepped forward, letting the pale lunar illuminations touch on his form. He was about Akio's height, slightly slumped forward. A trenchcoat covered him, making it difficult to determine his build. What could be seen of his legs showed the confined bulkiness of a trained fencer: slim but only because the strength was centralized. From what hints of color revealed themselves, Akio could guess that black was the chosen color scheme. Protruding from the trenchcoat was the handle of a rapier, a simple sheet of bronze wound in on itself to create a breaking wave pattern of sorts; the angle of it suggested that the figure was holding it in his left hand.  
  
"I think I may know you." Akio wagered. "Are you Miki, realizing the foolishness of his youth and thinking that he can reclaim his innocence with my death? Or perhaps Ruka, having faked his own death, coming back after he felt he had honed his skills enough to face me? Or maybe the little child Mitsuru, all grown up and looking to finally be a knight, after wrenching the truth from those duelists he so admired? Or a child of any of the duelists, romantically looking to avenge his sire?"  
  
"The simplest explanation, Ohtori." The figure stepped forward. "They hated the duels. I hate you. At least, I'm the only male fencer who hates you." Nemuro stepped out of the shadows in full. His face was now lined with creases and the marks of age. His pink hair was pulled back into a pigtail, with touches of gray at his temples. He had indeed gone for a black motif. He wore a black trenchcoat, black pants stuffed into knee-high black boats, and a black Chinese shirt with red trim, ultimately creating a parody of his original school uniform. The light glinted off of his glasses in a haphazard fashion. He spoke mockingly. "It is true, isn't it? You haven't aged at all."  
  
"Mikage!" Akio stepped back in apprehension. This was logically impossible. "How are you here? I cast you out of here, out of this world! You are forgotten!"  
  
"Not Mikage. I am Nemuro. There's a difference. Mikage was one of your constructs. Nemuro, however, even though he forgot it for a time, is his own man." Nemuro stepped forward more, enjoying this immensely. "You're one to be surprised, anyway. You were probably around when they wrote the Upanishads. Really, my return is in some ways your own loose ends coming back to bite you in the ass. You had me seek the secrets of Eternity for you. Without even knowing it, you showed me how to be like you. I just had to realize that you had."  
  
By now, Akio had resumed his normal composure. Nemuro had been easy to dispose of before, but there was a chance he was more dangerous now. Of course, Akio was still confident that he was more than a match for dear professor. Akio shot back, "And yet you've chosen to age? I'm at the height of my power, while I would guess you're starting to hit your mid-life crisis."  
  
"Don't worry. I'm still fit. In fact, I'm probably healthier than when I attended the academy. I didn't get much exercise in those days." Nemuro retorted. "If you must know, that is the secret of my return. You graduated me, Ohtori. As long as I stayed young, that meant I didn't exist. But as I grew older, I became more solid, more real, compared to this world." There was a pause, then realization bloomed on Nemuro's face. "You sly bastard! You were trying to make me return to my youth to face you, so that your old tricks could work on me again!"  
  
Akio shrugged and sighed. "Guilty as charged. I assumed that a human computer would find the most logical option to be young, so you would never voluntarily grow old, even under the prison of non-existence. I must concede, I misjudged the exact nature of your hubris." Akio's right hand moved out of sight behind his leg, then reappeared a second later hold his own rapier. "You did bask in the praise of your teachers, but it seems not enough to let the peer pressure of a nickname sway you. It's always easier to play this game when your victim's personality doesn't have so many gray areas."  
  
Nemuro shook his head. With a consigned flop, he leaned his body against the wall. "You'll have to forgive me, Ohtori. I know I came here to challenge you, but it was a long climb up. Perhaps you could let me rest a bit. I was hoping to ask you a question, anyway. You could gloat about, I think."  
  
Akio chuckled. Flashing a smile that could bring younger men and women to their knees with lust, he waltz over to the wall and leaned next to Nemuro. "It has been long since I've ever gotten the chance to banter. Please, I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you have."  
  
Nemuro nodded towards the projector. "You fixed it?"  
  
"Obviously." Akio responded. "The duels would be a bit hard to get just right if I didn't have it. It would've been a lot easier if I had you or Chida at my disposal, but alas, you both abandoned me. So, I've spent most your life learning how it works and then putting it all back together."  
  
"That brings me to my main point." Nemuro continued. "I spent some time thinking about it and I realized something. That projector functions using many of the principles that Tokiko and I developed during our tenure with the Eternity Project. And if I recall, many of the others did play with the idea of mechanically applying our models. And you were one pressing us all forward." Nemuro gave Akio a gaze telling the fox he had been found in the chicken coup.  
  
"It's true, yes." Akio said, "I used the Eternity Project to create the room we are standing in. Is that what you wanted to know so badly?"  
  
"Oh, I figured that out on my own." Nemuro idly rubbed his bell guard with his free hand. "My big question is, if you were using us to get the necessary supplies, then why did you set me up in the Nemuro Hall Seminar? You needed certain facts to come to light to certain people, yes, but there would've simpler ways to do it. Ways that would not have risked the lives of Utena Tenjou and your own sister."  
  
"You want the truth?"  
  
"The truth, Ohtori."  
  
"The truth is…" Akio's head bowed down. For a moment, Nemuro saw a real human being, multiplied over hundreds of lifetimes: thousands of years of regret and joy and boredom and fear and love beaming through the fallen god's expression alone. "The truth is, you, all of you, reminded me of someone I once knew, a long time ago. In each of your own idiosyncratic ways, you reminded me of my former self. Not all those poor young boys; they were really just fodder. But you and Tokiko and the other professors and doctors and theorists, I felt a strange paternal instinct towards you. So…" Suddenly, he was Akio again. "I decided to give you payment for it. Strange thing is, you were the only one who accepted the check."  
  
There was confusion, then there was muted understanding, then there was rage. With one smooth motion, Nemuro pulled his rapier from the scabbard and whipped it at Akio's head. However, the blade merely clunked against the wall, as Akio slipped away and jumped back five feet. Bringing his own blade around, he aimed to place the tip at Nemuro's neck, in hopes of forcing a surrender, only to have his blade beaten away by Nemuro's. Nemuro then tried to lunge for Akio's lung, but Akio merely retreated out of the way a second time and fell into en guarde.  
  
Then the duel began. Back and forth, the opponents exchanged stratagem and counter. Both their visions were filled with envelopes and flicks and beats and fleshes and lunges and ballestrois and all other manner of techniques. Nemuro had spent his life preparing for this moment, honing his skills and perfecting both his mind and body. In sooth, his fanatical drive had made him one of the best fencers in the world, although there would never be an official record of this. But his mind was blinded by rage and he never took a moment to think beyond the reactions burned into his muscles.  
  
This is how it ended. As Nemuro advanced then lunged, Akio caught his blade and forced it above his head, stepped past him, disengaged, reversed the angle of the blade, and brought the tip to rest on the small of Nemuro's back. Nemuro stumbled forward, both out of broken momentum and to avoid the fact, but Akio righted his blade and had the tip back in place before Nemuro could turn to face him. Slowly, Nemuro let his anger cool and prepared for the end.  
  
It never came. Instead, Akio quite blithely said, "Join me."  
  
"Wha…?" was all Nemuro could managed.  
  
"Join me." Akio repeated. "I'm a bit short handed right now. You could be of use to me."  
  
Steadfastly, Nemuro told Akio to perform a biologically impossible action with his own mother.  
  
Akio laughed. "Let's be honest, shall we? There's a reason you let yourself become Souji Mikage. You enjoyed it. You spent your life up until then perfecting your intellect. But what did it avail you? The world used you as a computer, some tool completely impotent on its own, bluntly storing and repeating information. Then you got your chance with the Nemuro Hall Seminar. You didn't merely outwit your victims; you ran psychological circles around them. And you revealed in it, the ability to use your mind like the finely honed tool it was. Why not recapture that feeling? You'll get to live forever, by the way."  
  
Nemuro's shoulders slumped. If any other person had said such a thing, he would've denied it to the bitter end. But that was Akio's power. When he said the truth, it cut you to the core. Still..."You would ask me to wear the black rose once more?"  
  
Akio's hand fell on Nemuro's shoulder. The sword didn't leave, though. "You don't have to wear it if you just admit the truth to yourself."  
  
There was no reply. The silence didn't speak volumes. Akio was already sure of his success. Gently, he led Nemuro out of the planetarium, letting both blades fall to the ground.  
  
"Just tell me one thing, Nemuro. Why in the world are you dressed like some cartoon-show badass?"  
  
"I could ask, Akio," Mikage replied genially, "why you're dressed like you're ready to go to the disco." 


End file.
